Rafa Benitez's frustration over Newcastle’s lack of activity in the transfer market boiled over last night.

The Toon gaffer has been able to spend just £31million to strengthen his squad ahead of their return to the Premier League and now has injury worries over striker Dwight Gayle.

And Benitez admitted following a 2-0 win over Hellas Verona: "When I decided to stay I was expecting another thing. Now we are where we are.”

The Spaniard expected to be handed a far bigger budget to spend on new players following promotion, but owner Mike Ashley is unhappy over massive wages being paid to players who are not in the manager’s plans.

“I decided to stay because of a lot of positive things I could see starting with the fans,” Benitez said.

Dwight Gayle is an injury doubt for Benitez (Image: Alex Livesey)

“Now I will try to do my best to be sure that the team we have will be good enough to compete and stay as high as we can in the Premier League.”

United have signed only five players and Benitez, desperate to land a striker, is under pressure to sell before can buy again. It is a situation that could backfire on Newcastle if the manager believes promises are being broken.

“We are trying to move players out to bring players in. We know what we need,” he said. “We are looking at different options. If we can’t get one, we have to look at others.

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“He needs the confidence to know he can sprint and do everything as he was doing before. It’s a question of confidence, so we will carry on pushing him in training and hopefully we can get back the confidence.”